Define the measuring stick

A shoe (or any product) may look great to one person but terrible to another. Whether this goes back to taste level, personal preference, quality or something else, it’s always important to clarify what is not ok versus acceptable as well as great. In essence, you need to define how your product will be measured by using examples before it has been created.

Show your team the desired end results for various aspects and components as well as some competitive successes and failures helps to focus the winning formula into clear view. This resets the target for what the team is actually doing and frames what is great versus merely acceptable or worse, a failure. Sketch with your team, go shopping with them and pick up competitive products, talk about what’s great (appropriate) and what’s not and discuss why. Cut apart examples to explore what's happening inside, good and bad, and explore existing versus best solutions.

Creating a dialogue and understanding with your team and leaving behind references that all can go back to when in doubt helps shape the final product to become the best it's intended to be.